The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Interiors 1952 3100 seat swap

I found a 60/40 seat at a pick and pull today. 99 Suburban was the donor. I have the old seat frame removed less the back cross piece. I’m considering taking an 1/8 inch thick sheet of metal and running it from door to door starting where the original seat frame was welded and back to the wall of the rear seat frame. I hope I’m describing accurately. It would smooth that floor out and make it easier (in my mind anyway)to mount seats. I saw one similar in a youtube video. If anyone has experience I’d love feedback or suggestions.
They sit nice just mocked up. I’m getting a couple extra inches at least. I need it. lol.

I'm not sure how you plan to mount the seats to/through the 1/8 inch sheet but the inner mounting points are going to require some sort of solid spacer between the sheet and the original floor. The mounting bolts should go through the original floor with large washers of heavier steel on the bottom side.

How is the height of the seat with it sitting as shown in your pictures? If they are power seats are they up or down in their adjustment range currently. In my case I used 90's vintage Chevy truck seats (manual) but wanted to raise them so I built a frame that was attached to the cab floor. My bolts (all except the inner front ones) go through the floor with large heavy washers on the bottom side.

I think Bill is talking about replacing the floor section with 1/8" steel, not just slapping the thicker steel on top. That would cover up the original floor pan depression that holds all the stuff you needed too carry back in the day.

Who knows what I was talking about, but the frame WICruiser is more what I need. lol. I saw one with square tubing on youtube as well. I was thinking covering the dip would make it easier until I thought about it. Kind of embarrassing, but I'll own it. Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt Kevin, but I'm a bonehead on this one.

The electric part of the seat works. Lumbar pumps, but air won’t hold.
The inner legs of driver side seat (where the hump was) slope down from front to back( 3.25 inches down to about a half inch), so some sort of riser will need to be put in place. I’m not sure, but I’m hoping to be able to keep that rear part of old seat bracket in place. Laziness. I’m leaning towards 1 inch square tubing for the frame with the plates in the pics(holes drilled before) welded at the corners where the seat bolts go. I think the plates are 3/16 thick. The rise won’t hurt a thing. I’m trying to figure out how to get the 3.25 inch rise for the front inner foot of the drivers seat. Malybe use a piece of angle somehow? Definitely use big bolts and big washers underneath when all the rest is figured out. I haven’t bought materials yet, so I may look at going with the angle. I am not a welder. My cousin is. His input has weight since he is doing the work for me. I want it to be as easy on him as possible.

WICruiser, the more I look at that angle bracket the better I like it. It'll be there when the rest of the truck is gone. What size/thickness is the material you used? Thanks!

I used "1/8" {A} x 1-1/2" {B} x 1-1/2" {C} Angle, A-36 Hot Rolled Steel" from Speedy metals.

For the front inner mounting points I welded nuts to the bottom side of the frame so that they could be installed easily, but those do not extend through the floor like the others. I'm sure there is some impact on the ultimate strength of the seat mounting by not going through the cab floor but I suspect that if the seat mounting is compromised that much I will not live to tell the tale.

My frame was welded to the original back portion of the seat bracket in addition to the cab floor on both sides. The angle was used to make box sections for the 4 fore-aft sections of the frame.

The resulting increase in seat height was judged to be close to the seat cushion height of the original bench seat and seems to be about right for me (5'9").